When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Russia

Facing Demographic Woes, Russia Struggles To Lure Ex-Pats Home

A program started in 2006 offers benefits to lure back home the Russians who left as the Soviet Union was crumbling. But the price to get the top qualified emigres to return is apparently more than Moscow can afford.

Russian signs on a pharmacy in Brooklyn, NY (Violette79)
Russian signs on a pharmacy in Brooklyn, NY (Violette79)

*NEWSBITES

MOSCOW – Over the past two decades, Russia has been hit by a demographic double whammy: an overall burst of emigration that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as a more recent and concentrated brain drain that has sapped the country of some of its best qualified students and highly skilled workers who have left to seek opportunities abroad.

Desperate to get back some of this human power back home, Moscow put in place a government program five years ago that was specifically aimed to lure expatriates back to Russia. The state would pay for transportation, offer an installation grant and guarantee jobs and housing if emigres came back to the motherland.

But, as the Migration Ministry has recently found out, a free plane ticket and a bit of startup cash has not managed to convince many Russian ex-pats to return.

Expected to attract 300,000 returnees per year, the program has had just 61,000 adherents since beginning in 2006. The majority of them come from former Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine, although a government spokesperson insisted that the program has attracted participants from farther-flung countries, like the United States and Bolivia.

Russia's population did stop declining in 2009, but the resettlement program still does not offset the Russians who emigrate every year. In 2010, a total of 29,900 people gave up their Russian citizenship after emigrating, and while there are no specific statistics on the number of Russians who emigrate without giving up their citizenship, migration experts say the number is between 100,000 and 150,000 per year.

Part of the problem, say experts, is that the program only makes sense for people who left as refugees, and for those who were already set to return to Russia. Of course, and unfortunately for Russia, very few of the returning emigrants are the highly-qualified individuals that everyone wants to attract.

Read the full article in Russian by Andrei Kozenko

Photo - Violette79

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

food / travel

When Racism Poisons Italy's Culinary Scene

This is the case of chef Mareme Cisse, a black woman, who was called a slur after a couple found out that she was the one who would be preparing their meal.

Photo of Mareme Cisse cooking

Mareme Cisse in the kitchen of Ginger People&Food

Caterina Suffici

-Essay-

TURIN — Guess who's not coming to dinner. It seems like a scene from the American Deep South during the decades of segregation. But this happened in Italy, in this summer of 2023.

Two Italians, in their sixties, got up from the restaurant table and left (without saying goodbye, as the owner points out), when they declared that they didn't want to eat in a restaurant where the chef was what they called: an 'n-word.'

Racists, poor things. And ignorant, in the sense of not knowing basic facts. They don't realize that we are all made of mixtures, come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. And that food, of course, are blends of different ingredients and recipes.

The restaurant is called Ginger People&Food, and these visitors from out of town probably didn't understand that either.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest